Pride, uncertainty greet fall of Yanukovych

“Yanukovych kaput! Wow,” Ola, 18, shouted when her friend ran over to show the news on his phone that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled Kiev.

She jumped up and down, pumped her fist in the air, and spun around.

It was about 4pm local time on Saturday (22 February) and she was standing in the rain outside a large, burnt out, military building on the outskirts of the city centre in Lviv, western Ukraine.

She had been making soup in a tent for a handful of cadets guarding the compound.

Misha, one of the guards, smiled. When asked whether he is loyal to Yanukovych, he told EUobserver that he is loyal to “the army.” When asked who the army is loyal to, he said “the generals.” When asked who the generals are loyal to, he walked away.

He had no gun because the guns, an estimated 12,000 small arms, had been looted by protesters three days ago.

Nobody in Lviv can say where they are.

Ola was cooking for Misha because locally-based soldiers are not hated in Lviv. When they got the order last week to go to Kiev, they SMS-ed their parents, who came with crowds to block the gates. They did not resist when the barricades went up, or when the guns were taken away. The building caught fire largely by accident, from burning tyres by the gate.

People in the city centre also reacted to the Yanukovych news with pride.

Valentyna, 40, an economist, spoke to this website outside a vandalised and abandoned police headquarters.

“The people who fought and died on the Maidan [the main square in Kiev] are idealists. Nobody believed that Ukraine is a country of people who are ready to die for ideals. Who in Europe would be willing to do this? Slava [glory be to] Ukraina!” she said.

She added that Europe “insulted” the Ukrainian opposition.

“People stood on the Maidan for three months and Europe did nothing. Now it should block their [the Yanukovych nomenklatura’s] bank accounts. It should work with the new authorities on this, because most of them have put their stolen money in Europe,” she noted.

At a square in Lviv’s old town, people gave speeches on a stage and milled around.

Here, the news from Kiev was confusing. Some reports said Yanukovych had formally resigned and gone to Dubai. Others said he had gone to Sochi, in Russia, to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin to plan a military intervention after the winter Olympics end on Sunday. Others still said he had gone to Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, to meet jailed former PM Yulia Tymoshenko to negotiate a power-sharing deal.

Artem, 41, a former businessman, now a local commander for the Pravyi Sektor, a militant opposition group, noted that he will not support Tymoshenko or any other opposition MPs, such as Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko, or Oleh Tiahnybok.

“They are all part of the same corrupt system that we are trying to ovethrow. They all co-operated with the bandits. This is not about Euro-integration. This is about ending the system of banditry,” he said.

Stepan, 71, a retired engineer, agreed.

When asked who he will support, he pointed to the teenage boys in military-type clothes outside the Pravyi Sektor tent. “Only the young people can build something new,” he said.

Stepan also voiced anger at EU politicians: “They don’t care about us. They didn’t care about us when the Soviets were carting us off to Siberia in meat wagons and they don’t care about us now.”

In other parts of the country, people tore down statues of Lenin.

But in Crimea, some members of the local assembly called for Russian troops to protect Russian passport holders from disorder.

Meanwhile, in Kiev itself, events galloped forward.

Earlier on Friday, a trio of EU foreign ministers had brokered a deal between Yanukovych and opposition MPs to restore the 2004 constitution, limiting presidential powers, and to hold early elections by December.

But the Maidan crowd rejected the offer and vowed to march on Yanukovych’s palace.

On Saturday, Yanukovych left the capital and his security forces published statements saying they would stand down.

Protesters occupied the presidential palace and Yanukovych’s private mansion, the Mezhyhirya complex, outside Kiev.

MPs from his ruling Party of Regions also defected en masse. At an extraordinary session of the parliament, the Verkhovana Rada, MPs installed Oleksandr Turchynov, a Tymoshenko loyalist, as interim leader. They restored the 2004 constitution and called elections in May.

Tymoshenko freed

They also freed Tymoshenko, who immediately left a prison hospital in Kharkiv, after two and a half years in detention, and flew to Kiev to speak at the Maidan from a wheelchair.

"Until you finish this job and until we travel all the way, nobody has the right to leave … You have a right to rule this country and decide for this country. Ukraine has an opportunity to build its own future today,” she said. Some people cheered, others cried.

For his part, Yanukovych, in a TV statement recorded at an undisclosed location, described the events as a “coup d’etat … a repeat of the 1930s when Nazis came to power in Germany and Austria.”

He added, in Russian: “They are trying to scare me. I have no intention of leaving the country. I am not going to resign. I'm the legitimately elected President … I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed.”

The Russian foreign ministry echoed his words.

It said the opposition is "submitting itself to armed extremists and looters whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order of Ukraine."

Amid concern that Ukraine, a country of 46 million people which transits Russian gas to the EU, could break into two or more parts, the EU published a statement.

“The European Union expects everyone in Ukraine to behave responsibly with a view to protect the unity, sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the country. I call on everyone to abide by the rule of the law and the constitution,” EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said.

The British, German, and Swedish foreign ministries noted that the EU is working on a financial aid package to prevent Ukraine from state default.

Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister who took part in Friday’s talks in Kiev, tweeted: “No coup in Kiev. Gov. buildings got abandoned.” Sweden’s Carl Bildt said: “Now confirmed that President Yanukovych tried to get the army as well to move against protesters … but was stopped.”

Strange calm

Back in Lviv, the city, of 800,000 people, settled down to a quiet night on Saturday.

Sale of alcohol has been banned after 6pm to prevent public disorder, prompting bars and restaurants to close early.

With no police, the streets are patrolled by groups of five or six men, some wearing yellow vests or carrying self-made ID badges with their photos and the legend Samoobrona, or “self-defence,” the name of the volunteer squads formed in the past few days.

On the roads leading into town, informal checkpoints, made from burning tyres and manned, for the most part, by teenage boys, stop and check cars. They say they are looking for “titushki,” hired thugs who attacked people and property in several cities in recent weeks.

Lviv shops have put posters in the windows which show an open palm against a balaklava-clad face and which say “Anarchists. Stop! Do not destroy your own city.”

But they prefer to close before dark.

On Sunday morning, thousands of people plan to get free busses to drive to a Lviv-region village, Staryj Sambir, for the funeral of Bohdan Solchanyk, a professor of modern history, who was shot dead in Kiev last Thursday.

Asked by EUobserver if she is scared about the future, Svitlana, 23, a children’s entertainer and a Solchanyk family friend, said: “I’m optimistic. Maybe it’s just my nature. Or maybe it’s because I’m from Lviv. Everybody knows everybody else here and we will take care of each other no matter what happens.”

She added: “So many people have died, so it can’t be for nothing. Things must change now.”

Andrew Rettman, EUObserver.com